The Anthropology of Contemporary Issues
2 total works
At the time Women’s Work and Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley was published, little research had been done on the relationship between the wage labor and household labor of Mexican American women. Drawing on revisionist social theories relating to Chicano family structure as well as on feminist theory, Patricia Zavella paints a compelling picture of the Chicano women who worked in northern California’s fruit and vegetable canneries. Her book combines social history, shop floor ethnography, and in-depth interviews to explore the links between Chicano family life and gender inequality in the labor market.
Sunbelt Working Mothers
by Louise Lamphere, Patricia Zavella, and Felipe Gonzales
The recession of the 1980s triggered important economic and cultural changes in the United States, and working women were at the center of these changes. Sunbelt Working Mothers compares the experiences of Mexican–American and white mothers employed in apparel and electronics factories in Albuquerque and illuminates the ways in which individual women manage the competing demands of two roles. Authors Lamphere, Zavella, Gonzales, and Evans show how these mothers-without the economic resources of highly paid professional women-find day care, divide economic contributions and household responsibilities with spouses or roommates, and obtain emotional support from kin or friends.
After an overview of the recent industrialization of the Sunbelt economy, the authors consider how new participative management techniques have given greater flexibility to some women's work lives. Drawing on interviews with married couples and single mothers, they offer an engaging account of representative women's home lives, and conclude that working families are changing. This timely book will be welcomed by students and scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, labor studies, women's studies, and social history.